So, about those extenuating circumstances...

Wyoming Republicans just moved to January 5th.

Wyoming selects its delegates at county conventions and the state convention, rather than using a caucus or primary system.  This means that Gardner could declare them to be dissimilar enough not to trigger the New Hampshire law.  It's also possible that the legitimate early state Republican parties can work together to force a boycott of Wyoming.  My guess is that this won't end up changing anything.

The normal avenue of attack from Iowa and New Hampshire don't work against Wyoming though – it has the lowest population of any state, so campaigning there would be about as one-on-one as it gets.  It is geographically large, but then so is Iowa for its population.  If that is the problem then you might as well have Delaware and Rhode Island first every year.  It isn't a swing state, but then the caucusgoers in Iowa and primary voters in New Hampshire don't tend to represent swing voters anyway.

What do you think – minus the linecutting in this particular instance, would Wyoming be a legitimate state for pre-window status?

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Simon Stevenson

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